The New Mettle: Linkin Park’s Incredible Return To Global Stadiums & Arenas (Cover)

From “Shambles” To Stadiums, “From Zero” To Hero: A Superstar Band With New Members Returns To The Global Stage (s)

“Show, don’t tell” is a mantra that’s served Linkin Park well. The M.O. worked literal wonders over the last year: On Sept. 5, 2024, via an incredibly out-of-the-box livestream, the band surprised fans across the world with its return after a seven-year absence and introduced a new, preternaturally talented co-lead singer Emily Armstrong and drummer Colin Brittain. This newly-constituted Linkin Park performed songs both from their classic back catalog and new material from their then-unreleased album From Zero (Nov. 14, Warner Records), the band’s first album since 2017. The stream of the launch has since racked up 14 million YouTube views, which proved an accurate indicator of the massive live and sales success to come.

The band played a short global run with arena dates in L.A., New York, London, Hamburg and Incheon in September, followed by five more global shows in November in France, North America and three South American gigs. The success of those dates were further proof of concept, setting up Linkin Park that same month to announce a far more extensive “From Zero World Tour,” with 60 stadium and arena dates across North America, Europe, Asia and South America.

Considering what Linkin Park’s endured over the last seven years, it’s miraculous the group’s playing together at all, let alone mounting a massive global tour with a new front person off the back of a successful new album. “Rewinding back to like three years ago, the band was in shambles,” said Mike Shinoda, the group’s co-founder and co-vocalist, at 2025’s Pollstar Live! conference. “We had a million questions about what Linkin Park was and what our friendship was, and if we were gonna sail off into the sunset and let people listen to the catalog and be cool with that.”

Linkin Park easily could have coasted off its successes, which dates backs to their 1996 inception as “Xero” (the band’s original name inspiring From Zero). The band’s recorded music bona fides are wildly impressive: a RIAA Diamond-certified debut, 2000’s Hybrid Theory, lauded as “best-selling debut of the 21st century;” two Grammys; six American Music Awards; four Billboard Music Awards, four MTV Video Music Awards and more. Their 2003 tune “Numb” now has over 2.2 billion Spotify streams; those numbers followed closely by their signature song “In the End.” All those triumphs for the Southern California band were with fan- and band-beloved co-lead singer Chester Bennington, who fronted Linkin Park with Shinoda, joined by OG members still with the band: guitarist Brad Delson, bassist Dave Farrell, and DJ/creative director Joe Hahn.

The surprise “show don’t tell” 2024 livestream marked the culmination of a period of mourning, confusion and eventually a renewed energy and purpose following the devastating July 2017 suicide of Bennington. Bill Silva, who has managed the group since 2014, remembers the dark days following Bennington’s death. “Certainly there was a lot of discussion in 2017 about what a future might be, and if there was a future, and how that might get shaped. And then it just kind of went quiet.”

Cut to 2022, when Shinoda asked Silva to listen to new songs. The manager presumed they were for the frontman’s solo career, which had seen 2018’s Post Traumatic album featuring three songs about Shinoda’s emotions following his bandmate’s death, among other projects and tours. It was during those collaborations and tours that Shinoda met singer Emily Armstrong of the band Dead Sara, though her voice wasn’t on any of the songs Silva heard in 2022.

Had Armstrong seen the band live before she joined? “Never,” she says. Did Linkin Park bring her in with an eye to her becoming part of the band? Not necessarily. The year was 2019, and “we were just writing and doing sessions. You get used to meeting somebody and just saying, ‘let’s just see what comes out,’” recalls Farrell.

As they got to know her as a musician and person, a friendship built. The livestream — done at Warner Bros. Studios, in Burbank, California — was teased to the fan club, with the location and line-up a surprise until fans arrived. As plans for the event began to take shape, “Then they asked me if I wanted to officially be singing,” says Armstrong.

“We did all of that,” Shinoda adds with a chuckle. “Here’s the thing, like every day, we’d call Emily and be like, ‘Hey, do you want to show up today to this thing the band is doing?’ And she’d be like ‘sure!’”
“I just showed up, happy to be there,” Armstrong remembers.

From the start, “the band and their team approached the return thoughtfully,” says Rick Franks, SVP of Global Touring, Live Nation Concerts. Fans watching the livestream from around the world gave a “real-time insight into the response of the announcement. Based on the data, it was clear there was incredible demand globally, helping us build a 2025 touring plan that felt right-sized for the moment. Sellouts internationally in Mexico, Europe, and several key markets in the U.S. and Canada are proof points of the band’s indelible mark.”

Linkin Park’s tour history bears this out. According to Pollstar Boxoffice Reports, Linkin Park’s total career gross is a whopping $236.6 million with 4.2 million tickets sold dating back to 2000, when the band was opening for artists like Kotton Mouth Kings, Papa Roach and P.O.D. While those grosses were in the thousands, the totals from their current “From Zero World Tour” are exponentially higher. This includes a recent $5.5 million gross at Mexico City’s Estadio GNP Seguros stadium on Jan. 31, 2025 before more than 64K; and a show at Sao Paulo’s Allianz Parque stadium in November 2024 before 48.3K which brought in nearly $4.4 million.

“About two-thirds of their fanbase is based internationally,” notes Rich Best, Global Tour Promoter, Live Nation Concerts. “The approach for 2024 was about reconnecting with fans on every continent in a very real and intentional way. After being away from the touring stage for so long, it was important to touch as many corners of the world as possible early on and set the stage for what’s become an incredibly strong return.”

“Incredibly” may be an understatement, as Silva notes: “Sao Paulo sold out so quickly that we added another stadium show there [nearly 100,000 tickets across two shows]. Very quickly, not even 90 days after launch, we had already sold over a quarter million tickets around the world.”

Shinoda possesses an innate, powerful sensitivity and thoughtfulness along with a sharp business acumen. He understands the passion of fans, their mindset, and is mindful of financial constraints when considering ticket prices. “I look at our shows as I want people to have a core memory going away from it feeling, ‘Wow, that was an important moment in my life that I just experienced.’

“In order to give them that, at least in our world, there’s a lot of work, a lot of people, there’s money that gets spent, time that gets spent to deliver you that thing, and so is our ticket price going to be $15?” Shinoda furthers. “No, it can’t be because we’re not giving you a $15 experience. We’re giving you something incredible. In that context, that’s kind of the place where we’re existing.”

Creative ticketing also came into play: The band’s innovative “Up From the Bottom” program in the U.S. offered a limited number of $39.50 tickets; fans don’t know whether they’ll be in the front row or the nosebleeds until they purchase. Silva noted they had requests for 28,000 and were able to fulfill just short of 15,000. They’re looking into implementing the plan in South America.

On the road, Armstrong is obviously the band member likely to face the most scrutiny, singing personal songs Bennington made famous. But she feels that her welcome into the band — and from fans — is better than she ever could have imagined. “It is something that you have to experience yourself to really understand the magnitude of it,” she said. “I think we’ve settled very well being shown to the world in one day.”

Shinoda nods in agreement. “‘Settling,’ I like that, because it’s a very chaotic thing to go through the re-emergence and all this stuff with it. Now it feels like things are very stable, and they’ve calmed down a lot for us. That allows us the time to focus on everything, whether it’s the new songs that we’re now just putting out, or focusing on things about the show and the tour.”

A clairvoyant revealed a message to Armstrong from an “angel/protector” figure, saying, “they’re telling me to tell you that you have to strap in, and it’s going to be a crazy ride, but it’s going to be great,” Armstrong relates. “It’s a rocket ride, was the way she worded it. She was right.”

Fan feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, with the tenor of YouTube comments consistent: @qwerty_93 noted: “None will ever replace Chester. It took the band 7 years to move on, we need to move on as well. Chester would be proud. Welcome Emily to the LP family.”

And @mariaines3881 said: “She’ll carry on Chester’s legacy with such amazing, earth-shattering vocals. I’ve been a huge fan of the band since Hybrid Theory, their music took me out of the worst depression not once but twice (I do owe their music my life), I still get teary-eyed when I think of Chester’s death and how he meant so much for so many of us. Now, Linkin Park can start a whole new chapter and continue making the music we love and need.”

Streaming and sales numbers bear out those raves. The new “Up From the Bottom” single has already generated over 38 million Spotify streams as well as 21 million YouTube views. And LP was the one-and-only rock band to cross over 2 billion yearly streams in 2024. Another new single, “The Emptiness Machine,” is now up to 534 million streams, catching up to the storied band’s huge numbers of the last 25 years.

The band and their team believe the close-to-the-vest “show don’t tell” approach to the re-launch was key. “It was a unique challenge in the sense that we didn’t want to have to talk about things before people could either hear it or see it,” explains bassist Dave Farrell. “We didn’t want to [do interviews and] have Mike describe what the new music sounds like. Or what the new band is gonna look like. I can’t imagine a harder, weirder conversation.”

Linkin Park avoided all the “obvious questions that everybody would have asked, and we all embraced that the music’s unbelievable; the performance is unbelievable,” Silva says. “Let’s just show the world. Let’s not explain it. Let them be the judge. And that’s how the concept of the livestream came about.”
The massive plans were difficult to keep under wraps, band members keeping secrets from friends, Armstrong careful not to be seen in public with Shinoda. Despite a few little leaks, the enormity of the endeavor was kept from the public at large despite the daunting logistics and moving parts.

Shinoda, closely connected to the fanbase and possessed of an inventive marketing mind, notes, “It can be challenging for us when we release new things, because fans snowball ideas, and things get blown out of proportion. I think because so many people tuned in, it really gave us a chance to almost plead our case for, ‘This band is gonna be different.’ It’s awkward; change is hard for everybody, and so for many, it’s going to take a moment to wrap your head around the idea that this band is singing the songs that you’re used to hearing a different way.’’

Armstrong recalls learning many songs in the band’s massive catalog, the singer and drummer in Brittain’s studio. “I sat there, I had the lyrics, he had the tracks, and we played along. There’s some that we’ve changed the keys to for my voice. That’s basically what we did for a full summer.”

Armstrong and Brittain made the band re-think some of the ways they’d been playing songs live, which had changed from the original recordings. “It was actually a really fun process, re-digging through the catalog and kind of being reintroduced to them from our end, too,” Farrell recalls. When you play ‘In the End’ for 20 years, then you change the key, it does a weird thing in your brain as a guitarist or as a bassist. You’re needing to transpose it as you go along, but it gives you a fresh take on the song.”

And Armstrong relied less on her vocal vibrato in her approach with the band. “I was able to be a better singer by learning to be just a little bit straighter.” And in terms of her approach to older songs, the edict was “definitely be yourself,” from her bandmates. “That was number one. It was, ‘We don’t want you to sound like somebody else.’ That was comforting for sure, and it made it a lot easier to learn 500 songs!”

More shifts for Linkin Park were behind the scenes. Fortunately, a change in booking agents didn’t tip off the press to the fact that Linkin Park might be planning a return to touring.

“We went over to WME [John Marx, Josh Javor, Rob Markus, Ron Opaleski, Brian Cohen, Jake Wilk and Dvora Englefield] and one of the reasons we did that is because touring is so much more fragmented now,” Shinoda says. “There’s so much information, so everything is so specific to regions and so specific to this venue in this particular area, and this fanbase, and whatever, that you need people who are experts in the little microcosms of those areas.”

The industry knows that “loyalty has always been a huge principle for the band,” says Silva, who recalls being a bit surprised that they made a change in agents from IAG Worldwide and Scott Thomas at X-ray Touring for Europe/UK to WME.

But it was becoming clear that Linkin Park is indeed a new beast in many ways. “I was so blown away and proud of them for their process, which included that they wanted to be bold and take risks, which was the first time I had heard that in all the years I’ve worked with them,” says Silva. “Because they’re very thoughtful and considerate about every move they make. They said, ‘This is the one time we were gonna take off some of the old filters that we’ve used, and instead, embrace the world in a new way.’ It spoke to the joy and the gratitude that they had. For anybody who’s seen the live shows, you can just see them smiling from start to finish in the show.”

The new dynamics, explains Shinoda, are “all still developing. It’s weird that as long as the band’s been around, it almost seems like we’re still changing the way we do things, but I think that’s one of the things that makes it exciting.”

Exciting and harrowing, as the frontman recalls anxiety around one particular on-sale date. “The night that Wembley went on sale, I was texting our manager, kind of freaking out. I was like, ‘This is gonna be so embarrassing if we put Wembley Stadium on sale and it doesn’t go. This is just such a big swing.’ He’s like, ‘You know, we run the numbers, and we feel really good about it.’” Silva was right; it was a quick sellout.

That’s not always the case, as in the band’s hometown show first slated for the 56,000- capacity Dodger Stadium, was changed to Sept. 13 at Inglewood’s Intuit Dome, which seats 18,000 – though with all their success since then, one wonders if and when they will return to Chavez Ravine.
Shinoda notes, “By the way, even though Wembley and most ventures go incredibly well, I feel like at our age, and the fact that this is a new a new band, that’s not the case for everything across the board.”

But Linkin Park is more than willing to put in the work of continuing to build on the business and touring side, while never sacrificing the artistry and joy that the creative aspects of the band bring. “Some places we have to build our audience still and earn it. That’s what we do,” Shinoda concludes. “We’ve always had that mentality of winning over fans and going into places where it’s a little more of a challenge, or being the underdog. We love it; I feel like the band’s built for that.”